Treacherous attack from neutral AI

Till now my experience has been that AI controlled empires can be relied on to not launch an attack if relations are neutral or better.

If I buy them off with credits or technology they will stay bought till the next production cycle.

However in one of my current games I paid the specified amount of credits at tick 288 to switch an AI empire from -1 to neutral, Come tick 296 the particular empire is still showing as neutral. But he launched a sneak attack which will arrive at one of my long-held stars in 2 ticks. It was launched 8 ticks ago.

Has Jay programmed a human factor ( the capacity for treachery ) into the AI ?

Anyone else experienced this ?

So you are saying that the AI launched the attack on tick 288, which is during the same tick when you paid to upgrade your regard from -1 to neutral ?

Can you provide the game number ? and maybe also a screenshot for Jay to troubleshoot ?

I do not know whether you have time to do this, since it is short notice.
I suspect that if you can evacuate all ships and carriers and abandon the target star for the AI to claim it,
then your regard should not go negative again because there will be no combat.
It is something to try.

Yes. The AI launched the attack on tick 288 , which was the same tick as I paid to upgrade our regard from -1 to neutral.

If Jay wants to see it the game is # 6249112015470592.

1
I am guessing that you may be the 1st place empire on the Leaderboard ?

In that case, all AI will all hate you, ( cough ) I mean regard you negatively and maybe attack.

However, if you are under attack when the regard is still neutral, then Jay will need to troubleshoot this bug.

If you are not the 1st place empire on the Leaderboard, then Jay would also need to know that to help him troubleshoot.

2
I am only looking at external game data, and I do not know whether any of this has anything to contribute towards the bug.

This game is turn based with 8 tick jumps.
You bought neutral regard on tick 288, which was production.

I have no idea whether this bug would show different behavior than a real time game.
Jay would have to troubleshoot.

Yes. I am in first place on the leaderboard.

And I understand about all the AI controlled empires going from neutral to -1 each production cycle.

I have been buying my way back to neutral each production cycle for those I don’t want war with.

I am not saying that having an AI empire return to neutral immediately after a production cycle then have them order a fleet to one of my mature stars is necessarily a bug.

Just something I haven’t noticed before.

( I have had a neutral AI attack a star which I only just captured from a third party. But that is not the case here.)

I believe if you are the leader, the AI will automatically go to -1 regard. I don’t know if it can be bought off while you are the leader. And every day you remian the leader, the AI regards decrement by -1, to a max of -8.

@Gwimweeper is in a turn based game. The server made all its calculations, and the AI had -1 regard towards him, and gave the orders to attack, then the server entered turn wait. Gwimweeper then bought neutral regard, but the AI did not cancel its attack orders. So the curios thing in the OP for Jay to troubleshoot is why the AI continues its attack when the regard is 0 ? During the next turn jump, shouldn’t the AI cancel attack orders when the regard is 0 or positive ?

Another issue to consider is whether the AI should stop advertising trade to improving regard for 1st place empires that they automatically hate ?

Maybe it still can be a good idea to continue advertising this ? to tempt the 1st place empire to spend some money ? or improve the tech level of the AI ? HA HA !!

The AI does not know from TB games. It apparently makes its decision every 4 ticks or so. So it can see changes during a turn that a human can’t react to. This is an important advantage the the AI has for TB games.

2 things.

  1. Neutral is not Friendly. A Neutral AI will occasionally make opportunistic attacks. (Happened to me twice in my current game. I’ve usually had it happen with a star I had owned for less than a cycle, but still it was in my possession when the AI launched the attack.) If I’m in the lead, and I need peace, I pay to get the AI to Friendly every cycle I need to buy it off.
  2. If the AI is Neutral and launches a carrier at your star, you can avoid going to Enemy status by abandoning the star before combat happens (and moving your carriers away, obviously). Again, this is something I did in game just a last week.

Vs remaining AI, a bribed neutral AI also attacked me in TB(8 tick jump). I had finally built up enough of a Science lead to gain a level of Weapons and a few levels of Scanning and Hyperspace Range each cycle. One of these tech levels would allow me to bribe 4 of the leading AI at the turn jump from -1 regard back to 0 neutral. The other tech level leads would allow me to trade and keep up with the aggressive AI trading. Since my lead was 85 vs 33 stars by the next AI, I had to bribe every 24 ticks to maintain neutrality on my border.

My empire coasted at 2nd place, 31 stars, for over 2000 ticks, until recently leapfrogging into the star count lead to KO two of the AI. The greater of these foes reached 29 stars, but my long campaign involved abandoning a star before taking the next AI star. Then I planned for a sudden gain of over 25 stars/48 ticks via well-timed carrier launches to claim empty periphery stars, abandoned stars and capturing 6 of the enemy held AI stars. My tech focus on Terraform allowed rapid EIS development as I ascended.

I built up a modest picket force on the Cyan Square frontier during the lengthy campaign against Blue Circle.

Initially needed expensive bribes of $14k-15k credits to raise regard from -1 to 0 neutral since my tech levels were a bit behind. Then shifted to Experimentation or Terraform tech bribes as I caught up. Now I can use harmless Range or Hyperspace tech bribes from my own research. Much cheaper too, and it also allows me to trade for Manufacturing, Banking, or Experimentation from any of the 4 leading AI every cycle, so I never fall behind again.

I was one level of Weapons behind at the start of the latest cycle (tick2496), and I set my research for banking to utilize a bonus of 5328 research points, followed by weapons, both of which would complete within the 8 tick jump. Having a sizable 4782 rp balance for Weapons, I was reluctant to trade, and figured to just research the rest of it myself.

The AI attacked at a range of 6 or 7 ticks travel time to Aldhafera.
Part of me wanted to speed up fleet dispositions to attack my next big AI target to wrap up this galaxy. I routed a carrier to garrison that star with just 1 fighter. 443669 ships were removed just 1 tick ahead of the major AI offensive against me.
The 355269 ships sent against me would have easily lost against the 443669 my carrier removed. I had over 400k ships on that star when the AI launched against me.

Prior games vs AI have shown a pattern on their part to build up on the border star and launch when they had sufficent forces to take a star away from me. The difference this time is that my 400+k ships were parked on that star for 6 ticks. How did the AI know I was going to just garrison 1 this time of all times???

This is a dark galaxy.

tick 2496







Other suspected factors holding back AI from attacking include:
differential fleet size (CS is bigger than me)
Weapons tech (CS was ahead by one before launching)
travel distance (They tend to not attack beyond range 18)
The AI with largest fleet and weapons combo will have the “attack live player Baton” when only 1 live player remains.

Up to tick 2504. the conquered AI’s have mainly launched fleets to abandoned stars, and stars they wanted to defend from my attacks, There was just a single withering attack that I defended via WG purchase and fleet movement.

I was staging my fighters away from the Cyan Square front to start a campaign against Blue Square, But now I have to backpedal and stop this aggression, before I am fully prepared. No longer sure what amount to garrison the borders with other AI.